How does Copyrighting work?

[Nebulous]

I was thinking particularly about when I visit homemade RPG sites and they're plastered with images from other companies and/or game systems. They often say "used without permission." Is that fine if the art and content is all free? Would respective artists be peeved if they saw their dragon on someone's website, or is that just expected on the internet?

Or is it just presumptious and rude to use someone's else's stuff, even if you don't know who they are.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Presumptous, rude, and potentially costly. Copyright begins when the work is created -- so the only way to use something without permission is either via the 'fair use' provisions, via works that have fallen into the public domain, or where the artist has explicitly granted blanket permissions.

Link to decent summary

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The 'Fair Use' rule is deliberately nebulous (and has to be), and is the source of most of the conflict. What one person or company considers fair use can differ widely from another's.

The safest approach is to get permission to use the work, you would be amazed at how many people skip that important step. And if the copyright owner says 'no' then don't use it!

For my own website, when I have had one, the only illustrations were either my own (mostly maps) or public domain (thank you Dover Books!).

The Auld Grump

 

[Ranger REG]

The 'Fair Use' rule is deliberately nebulous (and has to be), and is the source of most of the conflict. What one person or company considers fair use can differ widely from another's.

I thought the Fair Use policy stated in the copyright law is pretty clear.

 

[trancejeremy]

Most fan sites and such are done on the premise that the copyright owners of the stuff simply don't care about suing every single person that uses their stuff without their permission.

 

[Ranger REG]

Most fan sites and such are done on the premise that the copyright owners of the stuff simply don't care about suing every single person that uses their stuff without their permission.

IOW, they hope to fly under the radar of the IP owners while attract everyone else's attention on the information superhighway.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I thought the Fair Use policy stated in the copyright law is pretty clear.

Here it is - section 107 (I have it bookmarked )

§ 107. Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include —

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

****

Not nebulous? It is a series of guidlines for determining on a case by case basis, not a solid 'thou shalt not', in comparison to the rest of the code it is quite nebulous. The apparent ambiguity of sections (1), (3), and (4) are what is commonly used by websites to cover their as... umm, I mean justify the use of copyrighted material. Fun also creeps in because of differences in domestic and international copyright laws. (Which resulted in the Ace Books 'pirate edition' of The Lord of the Rings in the 1960s.)

Sorry about that, I actually enjoy arguing this. And if you throw in legal precedents then it goes all over the place! The court has flip flopped more often than rubber sandles at the beach.

The Auld Grump

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

(Entertainment & Sports Lawyer)

As time passes and economies become increasingly intertwined, international copyright laws are tending to converge.

Most "1st World" nations are signatories to all the major international Intellectual Property treaties, like the Berne Convention.

As such, more countries are increasing the transparency of their borders for copyright infringement...

or, in layman's terms:

"Even if you never set foot in the USA, the FBI can get you into the US courts for copyright infringement cases...and INTERPOL can do the reciprocal for Europeans..."

And those lawsuits can reach into $100k's per violation.

As for being peeved- it depends on the artist, how their art was used, and how much of it was used. If I saw my "Tryptich of Dragon and Slayer" plastered all over your website, I'd be pretty peeved- and if you used it as the cover of the Core Rulebooks for your own self-published game, there would soon be a knock on your door from a cadaverous lawyer who looks like the main villain from the Phantasm movies and 2 LARGE constables to confiscate all your stuff pending the lawsuit.

However, if you just used an extreme closeup of the Dragon's head as a piece of avatar art for your message boards, I'd probably be cool with that...

But then again, I'm not one of the big boys like Boris Vallejo or Frank Frazetta, etc.

However, there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of art that are in the public domain...pretty much anything from before 1900 is safe to use as you will.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

However, there are hundreds of thousands of pieces of art that are in the public domain...pretty much anything from before 1900 is safe to use as you will.

And there are some wonderful pictures out there in the public domain, or open licensed - you really don't need to violate anybody's copyrights, there are legal alternatives.

Dover Books has an open policy for their line art collections, including their coloring books, they and several other companies create archives of copyright free and public domain illustrations. Heck, the works of Goya, Rembrandt, and Dore are all public domain!

The Auld Grump

 

[darkelfo]

Don't forget that even if your use of another's copyrighted work is "fair use," you still have to go all the way to trial to prove your use was fair.

As cool as fair use is and as important as it is, its very risky doctrine to take advantage of. And as Auld Grump says, it's really a case by case analysis. Those four points listed in the statute are vague as it is, you'd have to read a hundred copyright cases to see the range of permissable action and even then there would be no guarantee.

When in doubt, get permission or don't use other's IP.